


My Pride is Worth Nothing Compared to You

by orphan_account



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: I was watching twilight the other day, JACOB IS SHARKBOY, Like, M/M, Team Jacob, and WhY the HeLl was George Lopez in it, and he ended up giving him a nightmare, and i reALIZED, and inspire, and make me want to write, and motivate, and sharkboy sings him a lullaby, but like, comments are treasured like diamonds, does anyone actually remember, from the lullaby, not sure if it was real, or was it just like a fever dream, remember that scene, sorry for anyone who's started reading this tag, sorry for polluting your eyes with this, that's a wholeass mood, the directors must have been on acid, too late to stop now, wHAt was that movie, what sharkboy and lavagirl was about, where the mc is tryna go to sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22873210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Patroclus has to calm Achilles down after a frighteningly vivid nightmare.I'm still crying over this goddamn book but at least I can pretend this is real-
Relationships: Achilles & Patroclus (Song of Achilles), Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 300





	My Pride is Worth Nothing Compared to You

“Patroclus! PATROCLUS! PATROCLUS!”

The sudden cries of terror cause Patroclus to pitch from the bedroll. He falls to the floor in a panic, blood pounding through his skull, his senses alert.

“Achilles?!” he shouts, jumping to his feet at the sound of Achilles’s anguished shouts. His stomach drops as he sees his lover seizing beneath the blankets in the dark, skin plastered in a sheen coating of sweat, face contorted with horror and fear as tears pour down his flushed cheeks.

Patroclus shucks the cover, narrowly dodging a kick that comes flying through the air as Achilles continues to cry out.

“PATROCLUS! PATROCLUS!”

A nightmare. He’s having a nightmare.

“Achilles!” Patroclus yelps, grabbing Achilles’s drenched body by his shoulders and trying to gently shake him awake. Achilles does not yet come to his senses, still trapped in the suspension of his own mind as he faces whatever horrors it concocts. Finally, with a last, harsh shake, Patroclus jolts him from his screams.

Achilles shoots upwards so fast Patroclus nearly falls again. For a moment, the golden-haired boy is silent.

He’s staring at Patroclus with impossibly wide eyes that reflect the moonlight slipping in through the flap of the tent. He’s crying, Patroclus realizes, as worry further tightens his core. The ghostly light illuminates the river of tears gushing incessantly down Achilles’s face; his eyes are swimming in them, the emerald irises at the center obscured by the shimmering pools.

Patroclus is absolutely stricken at the expression on his lover’s face. He’s never seen Achilles look so terrified in all his life- not on the battlefield, as he plunged spear after spear into the beating hearts of men, not when Iphigenia was murdered just feet away from him, not even when his early demise was prophesied. The sheer terror has caused his figure to go rigid as he sits, heaving for air on the bed. He seems to drink in the image of Patroclus with panic carved into his exquisite features. Patroclus reaches to brush the tears away, for they will not stop even though Achilles is now awake.

“Are you alr-”

Before he can utter another sound, Achilles wrenches him in a hug so tight the air whooshes out of Patroclus’s lungs. Achilles breaks into loud, hysterical sobs as he crushes Patroclus against his sweaty, trembling body. He buries his face into the crook of Patroclus’s neck and heaves with tears, tremors shaking his body so violently that Patroclus is afraid that something is genuinely wrong.

Alarmed, Patroclus tries to sit back enough to take Achilles’s face in his hands. “Hey, n-no, it’s okay, it was just a dream-”

“Y-you d-died,” Achilles chokes out. His voice is a mangled, broken mess as he tries to string even two simple words together. His face is twisted by fear and anguish, the images of Patroclus’s cold, unresponsive corpse lying on the cot on which the living, breathing Patroclus frets forever burned into his mind. Traumatized by the vividness of the dream, he rakes his eyes over Patroclus’s body.

His eyes seem to say: he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive-

“It was nothing more than a dream,” Patroclus soothes, pressing his lips to Achilles’s.

Achilles lets out a shuddering breath and cups Patroclus’s head, deepening the kiss even as the tears continue to fall. He breathes Patroclus’s scent, relishing at the warmth of his skin, tightening his fingers around Patroclus’s wrists to ensure that, yes, a pulse is there, beating steadily against living flesh-

“It was s-so real,” Achilles rasps. “Y-you wore m-my armor- I was so st-stupid, you were d-dead, I couldn’t wake you up- oh Gods, Patroclus- I saw you dead- it was all my fault-”

“Hey,” Patroclus cooes. He is pained beyond words at the panicked delirium of the one he loves most. It’s not real, he tries to say. I’m alright, he tries to say.

“They brought your body b-back t-to me,” Achilles gasps, hiccuping to catch his breath. Cold. Stiff. Unyielding. He pulls the real, living Patroclus close again, desperate to forget even the possibility of a world in which the one who he loved most did not exist. His eyes are still wide, haunted by the things he saw. He stares at Patroclus’s warm, loving brown eyes and at his creased eyebrows and at his messy russet curls and at his unmarred, perfect skin- warm, colored- he’s okay… 

Drained from fear, Achilles slumps against Patroclus. The two fall back to the bed, curled up tight against one another. Patroclus can barely move, he’s held so tightly.

“Hey,” Patroclus whispers, brushing a soft golden curl from Achilles’s face. “I’m right here.”

Achilles crumples in relief. His swollen face screws up with the urge to cry, but he reminds himself that, no, it wasn’t real.

“We’re leaving tomorrow.” The words have fallen out of Achilles’s mouth before he registers saying them. They hang between them for a moment as the two process what this means.

“N-no,” Patroclus murmurs, stunned. “What about your name? If you do not stay, surely everything you’ve worked towards- I don’t want to be responsible-”

“My pride is worth nothing compared to you,” Achilles croaks. The image of Patroclus- dead- will not leave him, will chase him around for all of eternity. As long as they are in Troy, Patroclus is not safe. He nods to himself, closing his eyes as the last of his tears slip onto the pillow. “We leave tomorrow.”

Patroclus says no more. He nestles closer to Achilles, inhaling the familiar, calming scent that has come to mean home for him.

Wherever Achilles would go, he would follow. There was no doubt about that.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

_He is half of my soul, as the poets say._


End file.
